MELANIA Trump’s team has taken a swipe at Tom Cruise after the Hollywood superstar suffered a brutal box-office disappointment with his latest movie.
A senior adviser to the First Lady gloated that her own documentary had beaten Cruise’s Digger on one key measure as the $125million-plus movie struggled to attract audiences.
The unusual comparison emerged on Tuesday after Digger opened in 3,321 theaters across North America and brought in just $8 million over its first weekend.
Marc Beckman, a senior adviser to Melania, seized on the poor showing to promote her movie, which hit theaters earlier this year.
“MELANIA, The Film // By The Numbers,” Beckman wrote on X.
“On a per-theater basis, MELANIA outperformed Tom Cruise’s DIGGER by approximately 67%, despite opening in roughly half as many theaters.”
He added, “Digger played in 1,543 more theaters than MELANIA.”
Beckman claimed Melania outperformed Digger by around 67 percent on a per-theater basis, despite Cruise’s film opening in 1,543 more theaters.
He said Melania made $7.16 million from 1,778 theaters during its opening weekend.
But the films are vastly different projects and their financial pictures are more complicated than the comparison suggests.
Melania eventually grossed about $16.7 million worldwide during its theatrical run.
Amazon MGM reportedly paid $40 million for the rights to the documentary and spent another roughly $35 million promoting it.
Digger, meanwhile, is only days into its theatrical run.
The dark comedy earned another $12 million overseas during its opening weekend, taking its initial worldwide haul to $20 million.
Cruise, 64, plays wealthy oil tycoon Digger Rockwell in the satire from Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu.
The character finds himself confronting an environmental catastrophe that he helped create.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/17112937/melania-trump-advisor-takes-stab-at-tom-cruise-digger/